Wednesday, February 02, 2011

My blog traffic has plummeted since they closed down the internet in Egypt.

Sorry to see the Mystery Bookstore close in Westwood. E-books are killing the bookstore industry. Now I feel even more guilty that I have an e-book of my own coming out in the next few weeks.

They held a last hurrah reception at the Mystery Bookstore Monday night and I got to meet a lot of best-selling authors. Standing with a few of them, I mentioned the name Meredith Viera. Three of the four had no idea who she is. People don’t know the host of the TODAY SHOW? Good luck to those new hosts of CBS EARLY MORNING.

Since this is awards season, the coveted “Scumbag of the Year” award goes to Tracy Morgan. After his ex-girlfriend donated a kidney to him, he blew her off. Nice. And he’s not funny.

While the Red Sox got Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez this off-season, the Yankees signed Freddie Garcia and Bartolo Colon. Inquiries to Satchel Paige were not returned.

I love THE GOOD WIFE. It’s not just the best lawyer show on television. It’s also the best family drama.

Great HuffingtonPost headline this morning: Camille Grammer Blames FOX News For End Of Intimacy With Kelsey. Isn't it enough they irresponsibly distort the news and knowingly mislead millions of people, now they've tampered with Camille Grammer's sex life! FOX News must be stopped!

If you haven’t seen it, this Friday night at 9, the USA network is rerunning the two-part CSI written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The goose bumps haven’t gone down since I saw it the first time five years ago.

Manny Ramirez is now with the Tampa Bay Rays. Good luck to them. He’s the bag you set on fire, leave at someone’s doorstep, and run.

CHEERS is now on the Reelz Channel, running in the middle of the night. But I’m sure that’s only until they can land some infomercials. One of my favorite episodes is coming up tomorrow morning at 3:30.

Is Omar Sharif the only Egyptian we can go to for a comment?

My heart goes out to everyone stuck in that horrendous winter storm that's crippled most of the nation. I’m sure movie studios are saying, “Damn! This is really going to hurt the weekend boxoffice”.

Actress/alcoholic/addict Lindsay Lohan is now stealing jewelry. Hey, she needs start-up funds for that drug running ring she’s about to start.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you why I hated COMPANY MAN starring Ben Affleck. So you’re gonna want to rush right out and see it today.

Two weeks until pitchers and catchers report. Except for Alfredo Simon. He may be late... by twenty years.

The Baltimore Orioles’ reliever has the minor complication -- he’s been denied bail. Simon is being held in the Dominican Republic on an involuntary manslaughter charge. Seems he was firing celebratory shots in the air and killed one person and injured another. I’ll tell you this – players hate it when pitchers display emotion on the mound.

What’s worse? That NBC is just now putting together a reality show that is a rip off of AMERICAN IDOL (pouncing on that zeitgeist only nine years too late) or that they signed Carson Daly to host it?

Meanwhile, DANCING WITH THE STARS returns on March 21st. Celebrity dancers will be announced February 28th, but I have a preview. Sarah Palin’s daughter’s friend, Tracy Morgan’s ex-girlfriend, Betty White, Phineas & Ferb, Alfredo Simon, and Meredith Viera.

Regarding, "If you haven’t seen it, this Friday night at 9, the USA network is rerunning the two-part CSI written and directed by Quentin Tarantino", what's the title of those shows? In my TiVo guide, I can't seem to locate them

Funny how this whole post reads very much like a radio news broadcast or a sports commentary track. Rapid-fire information and tidbits.

Regarding Tracy Morgan, he may be a bit of a bastard in real-life, but I'm going to admit I find him hilarious whenever he's onscreen on 30 Rock. It's a matter of separating the personal from the professional. Professionally, I think he works well in comedy. Personally, it's not really much of my business.

As for Good Wife, it is probably the best lawyer show right now, but as a family drama it's really far from the mark. It doesn't have enough good actors to pull off that kind of dynamic.

And the production values can be a bit over-the-top, regarding the way they visually present Julianna Margulies (I might be biased, since I was such a fan of her natural beauty and homely looks on ER).

I'll climb on the Tracy Morgan Hatefest. I also never thought he was funny. Now I don't feel so guilty because I thought I was the only one that turned the channel when he was on. And what a bastard for dumping his GF! Most people when they break up say, "I will always carry a part of you in my heart!". His would be "I will always carry a part of you in my body where I can gradually piss it away."

WV: Commist-What a communist uses to cool off in those hot summer months.

Sports Illustrated said last week that the Rays had signed Damon and Martinez "adding veteran leadership to a young team." I suggested they weer flat wrong and should hacve said that the rays had signed Damon thereby adding veteran leadership and had also signed Ramirez

Agree the T. Morgan has no funny, but I find him acceptable on 30 Rock because the premise was that his character was a not funny self-absorbed egomaniac forced upon the Girlie show or whatever it is called by the Baldwin character. So I've always bought his annoying presence as an intentional choice to make Fey's exasperation more real. And she knew he could bring the crazy and didn't have any other career options.

Maybe it's just me, but I've always enjoyed the stuff that Tarantino's stuff for television (the episode of ER he directed, the CSI two-parter) than any of this movies. Mind you, he has a real skill for that ping-pongy dialogue, but the films are otherwise sort of empty and nasty. The sad thing is, the first few minutes of his half of GRINDHOUSE suggest that he could have written a comedy about three women out on an evening jaunt, not just a gory action flick. Maybe he'll make something like that. Probably for television.

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS OF 2011 by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created his own series including ALMOST PERFECT starring Nancy Travis. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and has hosted Dodger Talk on the Dodger Radio Network.

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